In Longing For A Tomorrow
by Clarenova
Summary: Rufus Shinra had to learn to be the man he needed to be. AU backstory for the transition of Rufus' character between the game and AC. Set more current day, outside of Midgar context. Focus on Rufus as a character. Side focus on Tseng and Shinra.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: It's been a... very long time since I last visited Lots of things have changed, and I feel almost dubious posting my first fic in about a year. Or so. I think. In any case, yes. Ongoing NaNo which I hope to finish in three days. I die.

In any case, an alternate history for a Rufus who needs to transit between the game and AC proper.

-

He cannot bear to love his mother.

_He looks at her and thinks her weak, so weak_. Her skin has been lily white for as long as he can remember. Even as a child, barely old enough to think or walk or do much else beyond mewl in her arms, he remembers her as pale and almost unnaturally _white_. Sitting there in her arms, he remembers her as flawless and unbroken, a goddess seated there, a madonna with the child. In those memories, his mother is perfect. In those memories, a select nucleus composed of comfort, warmth and ethereal whiteness wind one over another in soft, effusive layers. They form the entirety of his universe, untouchable and sacrosanct. In that nucleus, his father has no part. It is only his mother he sees, a woman sculpted of fine, fragile material, holding him in arms which never hurt him.

That, of course, was years ago. Rufus is old, even if he is only a child. He looks back on his memories and thinks them a different part of him, a part of him which deserves to be annexed if only to be kept separate from the new world he has composed around him. His mothers arms have long slipped away from their protective hold about his body, and he can no longer be defended in that same way. Because he _hits_ and that which is lily white cannot stay lily white when the bruises start blooming. He hits, and he _hits_ and _he **hits**_--

Rufus sat up in his bed, panting quietly. His pulse raced, the blood in his veins thumping a heavy rhythm across his senses. His chest heaved with each forceful intake of his breath as he tried to get himself under control. _Just a dream_, he thought to himself repeatedly, _just a dream, nothing more_. He cursed the clutch of his subconscious and licked his lips, uncurling his fisted hands from the sheets and bringing one up to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead. One last exhaled breath and he found himself able to think clearly again. Rufus slumped backwards, his back hitting the bed with a soft _thud_. He winced, and stretched his right hand over his chest so that he could bring it back to massage his aching shoulderblade. He could not see the ugly stripe there, but he could certainly feel it. Rufus slept shirtless for a reason.

He spent a long moment simply lying back on his bed, breathing quietly and keeping his mind blissfully blank. The floor to ceiling windows of his room had their curtains drawn back, and the undying glow of the city lights from beyond the Shinra building filtered inwards, throwing a soft gloom about the place. Rufus disliked pulling the curtains. He felt trapped otherwise, unable to see what existed beyond his cell in a building high in the sky.

In the dimness of his room, Rufus found his thoughts drawn to his mother. He thought of her skin, her smooth, soft skin and how, of late, it had struggled to remain as white as it had once been. Concealer could only do so much, and no matter how much there was one could never match up to the touch and texture of virgin skin unmarred by -- Rufus shuddered to think of it. He cannot bear to love his mother, no. As he stared up at the high ceiling, Rufus reflected that he did not _deserve_ to love her, did not fulfil the right requirements. He was not son enough for his mother.

If he were, he knew, _if he were_ he would have been able to protect her. They were separated only by that one door connecting their rooms, Rufus knew, but that door stood in the way of everything. He could open it at any time, but he did not dare to. His parents' domain was theirs alone, and if he entered god knew what his father would do to him. It only made things worse, of course. On some nights - thankfully not _tonight _- he had sat up in bed, his knees drawn up to his chest as he listened in silent despair to the sounds which filtered through the walls. The door was mean to be soundproofed, but the walls were of relative thinness. Things would thump against them, solid and heavy. His mother, most of the time, his mother flung against the walls in one of his father's drunken, work-induced ravings. _Thump thump thump _like the blood in his ears. And the next day that forsaken door would open and in his mother would sweep, serene as ever and dressed in one of those flimsy, paper-thin sundresses of hers. Sometimes with a thick scarf about his shoulders, "because I'm cold, darling, the weather's been getting worse", but Rufus knew better. His mother could wrap those swaths of cloth around her body like no other, and they disguised everything from the world. But not from Rufus' eyes. 

Rufus sighed, and rubbed his eyes. A passing glance at the blinking digital clock on his bedside table told him that it was four twenty-eight in the morning. Tomorrow was going to be another long day of ridiculous schooling, but at the very least it meant that he could avoid meeting either one of his parents. His father for obvious reasons, and his mother because Rufus could not stand to see her anymore. Especially in recent days; every time he thought that was it, that was as bad as it was going to get, he was proved wrong. Sundresses and cloth could not conceal everything. There reached a point where too much cloth became impractical, became _suspicious_. But if anyone asked questions his mother made no mention of it, and her serenity - her sad, sad serenity - remained unbroken no matter how farcical their acting got.

Rufus' own methods, he thought to himself, were more discreet and far more prudent. A turtleneck worn in their climate raised no eyebrows, and since it looked smart his father had no complaints. Others thought it look sophisticated, even on a boy his age. Rufus thought that it served its purpose, and let others think what they would of it.

Sighing as he cast the clock a second look (four fifty-two), Rufus decided that sleep was the last thing on his mind and sat up again.

The sheets pooled on his lap as Rufus pushed himself upwards. There was no point of sheets with a thread count of 300 when one barely slept well in them. Poverty would have almost been a blessing. Swinging his legs off the side of the bed, Rufus stretched gingerly, feeling fully the as yet unhealed bruises. He did not complain. Standing, he padded across the carpeted floor towards the attached bathroom, leaving the lights off as he entered. He was familiar enough with his room in darkness to not need the illumination. He spent more time in it than he cared for, after all, and if his father locked him in there was really nothing he could do but trace the walls and go quietly mad.

He turned on the tap and listening to the quiet splash of the water against the basin. Like the rest of his room, the bathroom was all wood and metal and glass and mirrors which Rufus never really used. As cold and clinical and detached and dead as it seemed, Rufus found comfort in the ironinc absence of warmth in the ambience of his room, in Shinra, in the concrete and marble world he had to live in. He extended pale fingers into the drip and washed his face, the cold water bringing him to full wakefulness. A glance up into the shadowed mirror had Rufus spending a moment looking into his own eyes. A little alive, and a little blue. The moment passed, and Rufus knew that being maudlin was pointless. He brushed his teeth, thinking of nothing in particular as he went through the habitual motions of waking up, of facing the day. Wiping his face down with a facecloth, Rufus exited back into the main room and headed for his wardrobe. He pulled out his usual black turtleneck.

Black had never been Rufus' colour. He stood as a very pale creature by nature, always seeming delicate. The turtleneck - a shade of a shadow, but really very superficial - which he slipped over his skin was more of a reminder and a call to duty and a necessity than something Rufus did out of personal enjoyment. The opaqueness which the long sleeved piece of clothing offered hid the marks which he was not allowed to show. White, on the other hand. White had always been his, his and his mother's. There was something pristine about it, something so unlike yet similiar to his character that Rufus had always found it symbolic when worn. If he had to tell the truth, and if he had to consider black, it would have been Tseng's colour.

Rufus finished with the last of his buttons. Pulling slightly at the hem of the turtleneck, he walked over to his desk and picked up the satchel of books waiting there. It was particularly light; he had very little business in school that day. A parting glance at the clock read five in the morning. Tseng would be awake, levels down in his office somewhere in the gridlocked, windowless basement. Rufus glanced critically out of his own window and into the expanse of lightening sky and decided to make a move.

He did not bother to look at his desk calendar, sitting there unmarked on the anonymous date which had once been his birthday.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Perhaps it would be prudent to explain that this is an AU - in all likelihood, it won't be set in the Midgar of the FFVII world itself. I wrote it with Rufus as a contemporary character, and the story revolves around Rufus - not the FFVII or AC plot (so to speak) or timeline, but Rufus as a universal character. It's rather upsetting for me, even, to consider writing out of context, because it's a wise saying that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but it's how it all started and it's how it'll continue. x.x I hope it doesn't chase anyone away. But things may change, who knows. NaNo time eats my brain and sanity.

-

Rufus reached for the key card which he kept in his left pocket, sliding it through the electronic lock which barred him in and stepping out of the doors as they swished open. He heard the beep of the system as they closed behind him, and took small, vindictive joy in thinking that the coding was programmed to only show his exit in forty five minutes. It was forty five minutes of bought time, forty five minutes of stolen time, the same forty five minutes he had come to treasure and respect. He had once wanted to alter the card further, to allow himself an hour or perhaps two. But as he well knew, plenty could happen in three quarters of an hour, much less to say two. It was better to self censor, to protect himself instead of letting himself give in to silly childish urges for something so banal as _freedom_.

The halls were empty at that time of the day. A flick of his wrist and a glance at the face of his watch spoke of it being five fifteen in the morning. The residential block in which the family lived was silent, and Rufus imagined that the administrative block to which the building was connected was very much the same. He made his way over to the lift lobby, not sparing a look at the suite in which his father and mother occupied as he passed. A cleaner was there, changing the plastic lining of the dustbins and refreshing the newspapers at the tables. 'Morning Becka,' Rufus said, smiling for the matronly woman whom he had come to know just as he was rather well acquainted with the rest of the support staff.

'Ahye,' Becka said, looking up from her work and bestowing upon Rufus a wide and friendly grin. 'It's master young Shinra; good morning, good morning!'

'I thought I told you not to call me that,' Rufus complained in jest, the smile still on his face as he adjusted the strap of his book bag. He tapped the button for the elevator. Becka turned from where she had been folding and keeping the past day's papers, securing them onto the cart she normally pushed around. She wiped her hands on a cloth and shook her head, still grinning.

'Ain't wouldn't be right for me to call you anything else,' she said, taking a drink of water from a bottle she pulled from her cart. 'You'll be going down to see that scary security man, I'suppose?'

'His name is Tseng,' Rufus corrected her, torn between exasperation and light humour. He felt his mood lift. 'And yes, I am. Why else would I be up at five in the morning?'

'Awye, you never know,' Becka said conspiratorially, giving him a broad wink which would have made Rufus blanch had he not been accustomed to her teasing ways. 'Couldn't be that a pretty young thing's caught your eye, could it?'

'In this building?' Rufus shot back, giving her a bemused look. There was very little time for frivolity in a building with eyes around every corner and ears installed in each wall. Besides, female companionship was the last thing on Rufus' mind. Becka laughed heartily, giving him a knowing look as only woman of her kind could give.

'If you talk to me you could be talking to any one of the pretty young things the management likes to employ,' she suggested, almost ribbing him and eager to snitch any gossip which might fall from his lips.

'That,' Rufus said to her, eyebrows fully raised in a look of scepticism he had long perfected, 'would be as likely as the "scary security man" spray painting his room pink.' _Which isn't a bad idea, now that I think of it_, Rufus thought idly. Becka shuddered at the thought, returning to her cart and speaking over her shoulder.

'I ain't one to speak ill of your company as you like it and you know that, master young Shinra, but I tell you, no good can come of you mixing around with his lot over in the 'rative block,' she stated stiffly, reorganising her bottles of cleaning fluid for no real reason. 'You get rumours from that end, you do.'

'Do you?' Rufus asked, interest piqued. He allowed the elevator which had arrived to wait, much more inclined to listen to what the cleaning lady had to say.

'Ahye, ahye,' Becka reaffirmed adamantly, nodding to herself. 'You know the little girly we just got? Sweet little dear by the name of Vannessa? Well, even if you don't, young master, she's got herself attached to the 'rative block. Unlucky little thing, because you know how it is over there with all the high ups - yourself excluded as always - bustling about and demanding things and not giving half a hoot that _some_ of us are trying to do work too.'

Rufus nodded empathically to show he was listening, curious for the rest of the story. Becka needed little further encouragement. Spinning about with eyes afire with the light of conspiracy, she leaned in.

'She goes about her duties goodly-like, Vannessa. By the book, she is, follows the roster we get like it's some sorta bible. And she one day gets the roster for the 'rative research dep, you know, and amongst us lot you don't go near that place other than to vacuum their floors and empty their trashcans quiet like. You don't go knocking on their doors unless them be _open_, you know? But the little girly - bless her heart - she goes and tries to get into your scary security man's office and then he's _there_ and looming over her and demanding in a _far_ ungent'lemanly fashion 'bout what she's doing and who she thinks she is. Scared her silly, I'll tell you; we swapped the slots a little so she don't have to go back there for a while.'

Concluding and finally satisfied, Becka drew back, dusting herself down as she did so. 'See now,' she said, looking very happy with her rendition of events, 'you better watch yourself, master young Shinra.'

Rufus hid the smile which was forming on his face. 'I'll be sure to,' he said in an attempt to placate her, calling for the waiting elevator as he did so and making a move to slip between the opening doors. 'You too, Becka.'

'Oh, don't you worry 'bout me,' the woman chuckled, ushering him on with her hands as she waved at him. 'Bye bye now.'

Rufus shook his head to himself as the elevator doors closed in front of him. The rumours and speculation that went on about the Turks never failed to bring a half-smile to his lips, especially considering how much he had partook of them when he had been younger. There was fear, certainly. No one in their right mind would have failed to regard those of the Administrative Research department with at least a modicum of respect and wariness. Easily identified by their signature suits if not by the air they kept about them, the Turks were intimidating on levels which they were well aware of. Talk of their work was hushed; the truth of the matter oft exaggerated when mundane and oft left unsaid when profane. It was a general consensus of the support staff, Rufus knew, to leave them alone until they asked not to be left alone. No one wanted to be caught uninvited in a Turk's office. Few ever wanted to be in a Turk's office at all, if they were wise.

Shaking himself out of his contemplation, Rufus hit the button for the basement level and waited in easy silence as the elevator plunged downwards. Exiting, he walked down the deserted corridor which linked the residential block with the administrative one, his feet guiding him more than he guided them. A different key card - coded to imitate the keys only the support staff were given - was removed at the glass doors which sealed the passage way, and entrance was granted after one quick swipe. Rufus slipped in and navigated through the twisting hallways which made up the lower levels of Shinra. Some time in the past he had once associated the dim corridors with a parody of a labyrinthine nightmare, but as days went by he began to draw secular comfort from them. It was the work of a short minute to reach Tseng's office. A swipe, and the doors swung open for him.


	3. Chapter 3

Rufus slipped into Tseng's office. 

Between the two of them, there had never been a need for him to knock, or for Tseng to invite him in. As a Turk - however junior at this point in time, however held back by the bastards and bullies of the upper administration as he was - Tseng worked for the company, for Shinra, for _Rufus_. Endlessly. Tirelessly. Without question, and without distraction. Whatever the reason and whenever Rufus walked in, his presence was allowed - _welcomed_ - by default. There was no longer very much space for awkwardness between them. They had been thrown together by time and circumstance and a shared outlook on humanity, and little could be driven between them. And there was their closeness. Rufus peered into the dim ambience of the Turk's office, the darkness seeming to inhibit the room and fill its corners. It was a deeper, older opaqueness than what the twilight introduced to his room. It was part of Tseng, verily, just as the coolness of steel and wide windows were part of Rufus. There were no windows here, only an antique office desk lamp which cast long shadows across the spaces between.

Tseng was getting changed, his jacket left hanging on the back of his work chair. Considering that he practically (and, on not rare occasion, literally) lived in his office, it was of no surprise to Rufus to find him in that state of half-undress. It was preferable to some of the states he had seen Tseng in; bleeding, bruised, injured, weary, exhausted, barely alive. His expression did not shift as he watched, the neutrality of his own face also shifted by the lack of light. Tseng had his chin lifted, the sharpness of his jaw a jagged, quasi-pale relief against the gradual slope of his shoulders. The dress shirt was already in place, its starched whiteness seeming to glow in the gloom. Rufus leaned against the wall and watched as the man slipped a length of black cloth about his neck, actions swift and sure and born of mechnical memory as the older man pulled the tie through a series of loops. The beginnings of a perfect Windsor knot began to form, and if Rufus had been one to allegorise it seemed like the gentle furling of some dark bud, complex and complicated and symbolic.

Rufus remembered the first time he had---

First day of school outside of the tutors which he had been brought up on. Rufus had been seven years old and uncomfortable with his stiffly starched white shirt. It was supposedly a public school which he was attending, but as his father would have it, the school was really not so much a "public" school as a "school where admission was not completely monitored by Shinra". Rufus did not understand then what it meant - "Need for a public figurehead, a simple representation of our integrity, a tangible object for public perception. He will do." - but he did understand that listening to what his father told him to do ensured that he avoided a beating.

On the dawn of the day itself he had stood, confounded, lost and confused with a tie in his hand and no idea what to do with it. His mother had been in her room, recovering from that which Rufus was not allowed to speak of. All the times before she had been there; holding his hand when his shoulders hurt too much, pulling his collar up when something had shown, adjusting the hem of his shirt to make him look presentable. He had been five minutes to late when his driver had sent someone authorised enough to head up the elevator to come collect him. The man in question had shot him a look with the wary eyes of prey approaching a downed predator before approaching, asking in a voice too timid for so large a man if sir had needed any help if that was not too presumptuous of him because well yes, yes sir.

Rufus had looked at him oddly, which made the man wince. He had merely needed to extend the tie - mute and unblinking - and the older man had attended hastily to him, almost afraid of touching Rufus, almost a plebeian in the face of a god.

He had gone to school feeling awkward, and tried to do something to make himself worth loving.

-

'Mother?'

'Yes, dear?'

Rufus shuffled into the room, face half flushed and a tie in his hand. He opened his mouth to mumble a request. 'I... want to learn how to tie this properly.' He stepped a little further into the room, edging closer in small degrees. He was a small child asking for a grown-up thing.

'Oh,' his mother gushed, bringing her petite hands up to her mouth as she looked at Rufus for a moment. From where he stood, eyes shaded because he was half looking to the floor, Rufus could tell that she was biting her lower lip.

He failed to see why. There was no way, after all, that he could possibly have understood how it was for the woman in white. He had no way of seeing how much it tore at her already wretched heart to see her only son and treasure demand, however unconsciously, for a further piece of his independence. A woman with so little was having more taken from her, but she had to bear it like a woman of true strength, a woman of tragedy.

'Darling,' she exclaimed softly in that melodic, unbroken voice of hers. She brought her hands down to smooth the material of her dress, wiping out the wrinkles in the fabric like she wiped the creases from her brow. 'Darling, you don't have to learn how to do that just now,' she cooed, stepping closer and stooping to Rufus' level, fussing over the turn of his collar and pulling it into place. She bustled forward, allowing maternal pride and maternal sacrifice to buffer her and give her strength and will enough to endure. Her child was growing up. She pushed the light blond strands of his hair - so very much like hers - back and out of Rufus' eyes, leaning forward to press a lingering kiss to his forehead. 'I'll always be here to do it for you,' she promised him, kneeling so that she could look directly into his blue eyes - so very much like his father's. She leaned in, breaking the gaze, and pressed a teasing kiss to his nose before reaching for the tie. 'Here,' she said, looking down to disguise the glistening wetness of her eyes. 'You do it like this.'

Rufus stood very still as his mother pulled the tie about his neck, turning up his collar as he did so. _Why is she so tender?_ he wondered, blinking at the golden halo of her hair. _Why is her touch so different from my father's, and why does she love me when he does not?_

'You start,' his mother said, clearing her throat and blinking rapidly, 'like this.' She tugged gently on the material to get Rufus' attention, and he nodded blankly, still lost in thought and the dizzy ambrosia of her perfume. _Why does she smell so beautiful? How can someone my father beats smell so beautiful?_ The tie was rearranged a little more, and then Rufus felt his mother twisting the cloth into shape. 'You pull it to the side,' she was saying, 'you pull it to the side like this.' 

_How can your hands be so gentle?_

The material slithered into place, obeying the command of fingers which had never known brute strength. The whisper of it against his skin almost made Rufus shudder, the feeling of something so close to his throat for some reason not frightening to him at all. To a boy who jumped at shadows in the night, to a boy who felt fingers against his throat when he had a nightmare, to a boy who envisioned a life without abuse - to feel the pseudo-noose around his neck and to fear it not at all was a revelation.

'And then you double that side back...'

_How can you touch soothe me?_

A myriad of almost-tangles formed under those fingers, fingers which had the delicacy of a saint's, the delicacy and the hallowedness of a saint's. The snaking slip of cloth on cloth, layers of the same stuff winding around each other. Little fronds of fabric, a swift pull making them all come together. Rufus had never known anything so perfect than that moment; his mother's hands and his mother's skill and his mother with her scarf slipping off one shoulder to show a bruise.

'Tilt your neck up, darling.'

_I would lift my head up high for you, mother. More than for anyone. Because you are so strong, and I want to be strong for you._

Pulled together, like a double-ended strand of fate, curling and made beautiful by a love Rufus could not hope to measure.

'Thank you. Now, pull it up through here.' 

_Do everything for you, mother._

'And then you push it up.'

Rufus found a perfect Windsor knot at his throat, a beautiful bloom pulled tight and kept shut. 'Thank you,' he murmured. His mother exhaled, pulling back. Then she could take the sight of him no more, and buried him in her arms, resting her cheek against the top of his unmoving head and saying in her voice, '_Oh, Rufus_.'

-- tied a tie himself.


End file.
